New Group Offers Help In Collecting Payments From `Deadbeat Dads`

June 27, 1986|By David Wallace, Staff Writer

About 7,000 Broward County mothers trying to collect child-support payments from uncooperative ex-husbands living outside Florida have a new group to help them called Children Against Deadbeat Dads or CADD.

Broward County coordinator Barbara Sherman of Miramar said she is using mailings to interest single mothers in the group. CADD offers counseling in family law and gives emotional support and advice from people who have worked to collect delinquent child-support payments.

In two years, the organization has expanded into Alabama and Georgia since its inception by Marjorie Van Brackle, a mother of four who lives in Ormond Beach.

Locally, group members attempt to monitor action by judges and lawyers who handle child-support disputes, Sherman said.

``Many women lose their self-esteem after a divorce and being thrown into the job market,`` she said. ``We want to educate women about the law and teach them to work with the system. The frustration level is so high and the fees some girls are paying to attorneys are just astronomical.``

Sherman said informational and financial barriers to recovering child support are so great that many women don`t know where to start. That situation was compounded earlier this year during an administrative change of caseworkers.

In March, the state Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services` contract with Broward County`s enforcement caseworker division was canceled. When HRS took over responsibility for the work, 7,000 files had to be moved, reassigned and taken over by new caseworkers and investigators, HRS Program Manager Helen Reynolds said.

The six HRS investigators each handle about 1,100 cases, Reynolds said, so it is difficult to keep up with changing federal, state and county enforcement guidelines to ensure child-support payments are made.

There are about 7,000 active cases in Broward of mothers trying to recover support payments and between 3,000 and 4,000 inactive cases, she said.

``There are reciprocal agreements between all 50 states to ensure that if an absent parent is found somewhere, the money is paid,`` Reynolds said. ``One of our goals is trying to save the state`s and taxpayers` money by reducing the amount that has to be paid out through Aid to Families with Dependent Children.``

A CADD chapter in Dade has been operating for about a year. Director Joan Matteo said the group is making slow progress. The difficulty in getting women involved, she said, is that some women work two jobs and believe their situation is isolated, not part of a bigger problem.

``It`s difficult to monitor the courts action when you have to work full time,`` Matteo said.